Chris Worth’s reply: Something that isn’t pure air is unhealthy for the lungs and the system basically. Pure air, although, is at present solely out there up a mountain and mid-ocean, since we polluted all over the place else. Vaping is a number of orders of magnitude safer than smoking cigarettes. Precisely how…

After a couple weeks of bad news and worse news for vaping, along comes exciting good news from the least likely place imaginable: the University of California.

A new study from the University of California-San Diego says that vaping helps smokers try to quit, and of those who try, more smokers who use e-cigarettes succeed. The study appeared in the British Medical Journal.

The research team used data collected by the U.S. Census CPS-TUS, a survey of adults to collect information about changes in tobacco product use. According to lead author Shu-Hong Zhu, a UC-San Diego professor of Family Medicine and Public Health, the CPS-TUS data is based on the largest sample of smokers and vapers available.

“These data suggest that e-cigarettes play the role of a cessation tool.”

The researchers looked at the connections between e-cigarette use and smoking cessation. They found that 65 percent of smokers who vaped during the previous year had tried to quit smoking, while just 40 percent of the non-vaping smokers tried.

Even more exciting, 8.2 percent of the smokers who vaped were able to quit smoking, while just 4.8 percent of those who didn’t vape were successful at quitting. “The cessation rate among those who did not use e-cigarettes remained the same compared to previous years,” said Zhu. “These data suggest that e-cigarettes play the role of a cessation tool.”

“Our analysis of the population survey data indicated that smokers who also used e-cigarettes were more likely to attempt to quit smoking, and more likely to succeed,” said Zhu. “Use of e-cigarettes was associated both with a higher quit rate for individuals as well as at the population level; driving an increase in the overall number of people quitting.”

Great news, but will it stick?

The findings of this careful study are in direct conflict with Prof. Stanton Glantz’s famously sloppy 2016 meta-review, which in the words of scientists at the Truth Initiative, “simply lumps together the errors of inference” from the individual studies that were combined in the review. (If you’re not familiar with the Glantz paper, I suggest starting with Clive Bates’ brutal takedown.)

An accompanying editorial in the BMJ — titled “New evidence supports a liberal approach to e-cigarette regulation” — by Chris Bullen, a public health professor at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, emphasized the good news for public health.

“The research by Zhu and colleagues suggests that where such permissive approaches to e-cigarettes exist—ones that enable smokers to have ready access to products that deliver nicotine effectively, at a price lower than that of tobacco cigarettes—then substantial numbers of smokers will make the transition away from smoking, and a substantial population benefit can result,” writes Bullen. “In light of this evidence, policy makers in countries contemplating a more restrictive approach to the regulation of e-cigarettes should pause to consider if pursuing such a course of action is the right thing to do for population health.”

The question now is whether this study will get the publicity it deserves in the United States. The influence on the news media of nine years of relentless vaping negativity and outright attacks from American public health officials and tobacco control ideologues has prevented other academic efforts from breaking through to the general public.

By Wednesday evening, the story was already being reported widely, including by the Associated Press and Reuters, whose stories will be picked up by many newspapers. Will this good news tip the scales back toward something resembling fair discourse? Or will it be quickly forgotten? Cross your fingers.

The post New California study proves vaping helps smokers quit appeared first on Vaping360.

England is the first country in the world to recommend vaping to smokers as part of its official tobacco control plan. The 32-page document was released Tuesday. It applies only to England, not the entire United Kingdom, which also includes Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

“This is probably the first significant government policy paper anywhere that recognises and pursues the opportunities of tobacco harm reduction, rather than defining these technologies as a threat to be suppressed,” wrote Clive Bates in his blog.

England has been a pioneer — the pioneer — in promoting vaping to smokers.

The plan is starkly different from American tobacco control efforts. The idea that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), or the California Department of Public Health, might actually recommend that smokers use reduced-risk products like e-cigarettes to improve their health is about as likely as Stanton Glantz tearing open a pack of Kools and lighting up at a UCSF fundraiser.

England has been a pioneer — the pioneer — in promoting vaping to smokers. It wasn’t that long ago — just two years, in fact, in 2015 — when Public Health England’s “E-cigarettes: an evidence update” shook the foundations of tobacco control, and defined the divide in public health between harm reduction and prohibition.

Vaping in the workplace? Yes, please!

Last year, PHE issued guidance to employers, reminding them, “Different approaches will be appropriate in different places, but policies should take account of the evidence and clearly distinguish vaping from smoking.”

The tobacco control plan makes that advice more official. “This recognises that decisions on vaping policy should rest with owners and managers of premises – and that the justification to override the preferences of property owners with blanket vape-free laws does not exist,” writes Clive Bates. “This is an ethically robust position to take.”

Will England dump the TPD after Brexit?

The hated Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) provoked many vapers to vote to leave the European Union last year. The tobacco control plan provides the first official hint that England could possibly abandon the TPD after the U.K. exits the E.U.

“We will look to identify where we can sensibly deregulate without harming public health or where EU regulations limit our ability to deal with tobacco,” says the Department of Health. “In particular, the government will assess recent legislation such as the Tobacco Products Directive, including as it applies to e-cigarettes, and consider where the UK’s exit provides opportunity to alter the legislative provisions to provide for improved health outcomes within the UK context.”

That would be a welcome development for vapers and vaping businesses. The disruption to the market caused by the pointless regulations of the TPD has caused some vape companies in the U.K. to close, and forced vapers to hack devices and DIY e-liquid to have workable gear.

The post England officially sides with vaping! appeared first on Vaping360.

Daily Mix Tip: Are you wondering how to get colored e-liquid? Most of the time if you ask this question in a group you are going to get a resounding NO DON’T DO IT!!! Most mixers are profoundly against putting extra ingredients that may potentially have harmful effects, the reason why most say No to food coloring. However, that is not helpful for the folks who may not be worried about safety at that level and may want to color their liquids anyway.

If you want to color your liquids, my suggestion is to stay away from artificial colors as they pose the most potential for safety risk. Nature’s Flavors does carry natural food colorings, they aren’t quite as vibrant as artificial colors, but they will color your liquids. Being natural there may be less cancer risks as those are worries with artificial colors just in eating them, imagine what they could do to your lungs! So if you want to dye your eliquids a color, Go Natural.

The Dutch cancer association KLF filed suit against four multinational tobacco companies, and now lawyers in 17 other countries are following KLF’s lead and considering doing the same.

NL Times reported that lawyers from 15 countries recently gathered in Switzerland to discuss the Dutch lawsuit, and how to pursue their own legal strategies. Representatives from Germany and Belgium are also interested, but were unable to attend the meeting.

The companies being sued are Philip Morris International, British American Tobacco, Japan Tobacco International and Imperial Tobacco. The Netherlands’ public prosecutor (equivalent to an attorney general) will decide by August if the country itself will prosecute the case.

De Kanter maintains that nicotine is as addictive as cocaine and heroin.

The Dutch case is the idea of Dutch lawyer Benedicte Ficq and lung cancer specialist Dr. Wanda de Kanter, a well-known tobacco control extremist who is opposed not just to cigarettes and the tobacco industry, but also anything that resembles smoking (like vaping) and any form of tobacco harm reduction.

De Kanter maintains that nicotine is as addictive as cocaine and heroin, according to Dutch vaping advocacy group Acvoda. Of course, there is ample evidence that nicotine without smoke is nowhere near as addictive as those drugs.

Daily Mix Tip: If you’re looking for an exact 1 to 1 clone of your favorite commercial e-liquid, get that thought out of your mind. Figuring out the exact recipe is generally not going to happen, not because the flavorings are hard to get, but because figuring out the exact percentages and combination is usually damn near impossible for most average palates. To create a Remix of your favorite flavor will require identifying the flavor profile as best you can, write it down, then purchase flavorings you think it might be to test (if you don’t have them on hand.) You can also search through the recipe sites or ask around the groups if anyone has any recipes that resemble that profile, this can help you gather a shopping list. No it is not cheap to recreate a commercial juice, because there are a lot of brands out there, so prepare for buying the same flavor across multiple brands in order to figure out which one it may be.

While you are looking to create your favorite commercial e-liquid, don’t forget to continue to try out or create new flavor profiles you may in turn love even more than your favorite commercial brand. You’ll always have something to vape as long as you keep mixing. http://ow.ly/vQdK30cKsHi

Tony’s future was bright. Spending years perfecting his talent and product, He had climbed the ladder of the cereal kingdom. He had established himself as the “face”. Ad revenue and screen castings were rolling in. Tony was on top of the world. That was until the birth of those little ADHD assho……